Young Shin Cho

Preparation and evaluation of unimolecular pentavalent and hexavalent antigenic constructs targeting prostate and breast cancer: a synthetic route to anticancer vaccine candidates.

Several novel, fully synthetic, carbohydrate-based antitumor vaccines have been assembled. Each construct consists of multiple cancer-related antigens displayed on a single polypeptide backbone. Recent advances in synthetic methodology have allowed for the incorporation of a complex oligosaccharide terminating in a sialic acid residue (i.e., GM2) as one of the carbohydrate antigens. Details of the vaccine synthesis as well as the results of preliminary immunological investigations are described herein.

CONVENIENT WACKER OXIDATIONS WITH SUBSTOICHIOMETRIC CUPRIC ACETATE

Abstract A modification of the Wacker oxidation of terminal olefins to methyl ketones using substoichiometric amounts of Cu(OAc) 2 as a redox shuttle reagent is described. The modified procedure is generally high yielding despite reduced levels of copper salt and convenient. Importantly, in a problematic case, the conditions suppressed acidic hydrolysis during oxidation of substrate (+)- 5 containing an acetonide.

Design, synthesis, and evaluation of azepine-based cryptophycin mimetics

Abstract Cryptophycins, depsipeptides isolated from terrestrial blue–green algae, show potent activity against a variety of tumor cell lines. Given the potential of the cryptophycins for cancer therapy, we developed a new class of non-peptide peptidomimetic, designed to replace the 16-membered macrolide ring with a 7-membered azepine ring for attachment of the cryptophycin side chains with the required spatial orientation to mimic the conformation of the relevant region of the natural product. Monte Carlo conformational analysis revealed excellent overlay of the local minimum structural model 6 and X-ray structure of (+)-cryptophycin-3 ( 5 ). Starting from this structural model, we designed and synthesized compounds (+)-25 , (+)-30 , and (+)-34 as potential mimics of cryptophycins. Compounds (+)-25 , (+)-30 , and (+)-34 were tested for in vitro cytotoxicity against six human cancer cell lines. Although only modest activities were observed, these results suggested that a new series of bioactive cryptophycin analogues might be available by structural modification of the central ring system of the cryptophycins.